


Translation

by Touchshriek (Valmouth)



Category: Tennis RPF
Genre: Humor, Languages and Linguistics, M/M, Pranks and Practical Jokes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-19
Updated: 2016-06-19
Packaged: 2018-07-16 00:21:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,687
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7244686
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Valmouth/pseuds/Touchshriek
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Marat looked pitying, but then shrugged and proceeded to write.</p><p>It was not as fluent as Roger had been expecting. He wondered for the seventh time if he should have ever asked.</p><p>While wondering, he failed to notice the corners of Marat’s mouth twitch unexpectedly, as if holding back a smile</p>
            </blockquote>





	Translation

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I own no rights to these two characters. I mean no offence by posting this and make no money from it.
> 
> A/N: Original post on fedal_slash at LJ back in 2009. If you haven't trawled for fic there about the Golden Years For Fedal, then you really, really should.

“Translation? You want me to translate this?”

Federer nodded.

Safin raised an eyebrow and looked down at the slip of paper. “Into what?” he asked sceptically.

“Spanish.”

“Ah. So there is some Spanish girl you know and love, yes?”

Roger grinned. But he only shrugged. He calculated Marat would be satisfied with a slightly embarrassed flush, a goofy grin and no word whatsoever about how dangerous it was to assume things like who the note could be for.

Marat looked around and then gestured to a table.

Roger sometimes wondered if the Russian realized how effusively he was prone to gesture after a few drinks. One outflung arm could do considerable damage to anyone getting those bony knuckles straight in the eye. It didn’t help that, at six foot four inches, Marat towered over most people.

Marat fell into a chair and waved to Roger to join him, eyes turned down as he scanned the scrawling words.

Somewhere in the crowd, Marat’s girlfriend was having a conversation in perfect English with anyone who was kind enough not to look down her cleavage too many times. Roger had been watching her with Marat for the better part of an hour, waiting for the two to detach at the hip so he could corner the man.

Safin was a hard man to get alone. Especially in a crowded room.

“You want me to say this?” Marat asked, eyebrows lifting.

“If you can.”

“No, I can say it,” Marat said, “That’s easy, but the Spanish girls, they don’t…” He scrunched up his face comically.

“What do you mean?” Roger asked.

“Look. Here- “I look forward to seeing you again.” You talk to your manager or your girlfriend, Roger? You want this girl, then you tell her. You say she beautiful, or wonderful, or how much you want her. You don’t say ‘I look for you soon’.”

Roger wanted to laugh. He really did. But to give in to humour, no matter how urgent, would require an explanation and Marat would then be unlikely to translate for him.

“I don’t think I want to say that,” he said slowly, brushing a piece of fluff off his cuff.

Marat looked at him pityingly but shrugged. “Okay,” he said, “I translate.”

He patted himself down vigorously for a pen before Roger gently drew his attention to the pen he was offering. And the little notebook. The efficient Swiss laid the tools down and waited while Marat got them all aligned in the proper order and proceeded to think very hard about something.

“Don’t change the words,” Roger said, “In case her father reads it.”

Marat looked even more pitying, but then shrugged again and proceeded to write.

It was not, in fact, as fluent as Roger had been expecting. Having seen Marat converse in Spanish, he had assumed the talent extended to written work as well but from the frown on Marat’s face, and the delicate pauses of concentration, such was not necessarily the case.

He wondered for the seventh time if he should have ever asked.

While wondering, he failed to notice the corners of Marat’s mouth twitch unexpectedly, as if holding back a smile.

“Here.”

He was handed the paper with a flourish. “Hey, that looks good. I was worried about getting it right, you know, so thanks.”

“Good luck with your Spanish girl.”

“Yeah. Thanks.”

Roger pocketed the note, made small talk, and then left Marat when the latter decided he had been away from his girlfriend too long.

He watched the tall Russian negotiate the crowd, looking impatient with most of the people who stopped him to say hello.

Roger shook his head. He rarely had much to say to Marat beyond the general exchange about tennis, injury, weather, and football.

Speaking of football.

His mind turned to his own task at hand and he searched the crowd for a darker head than Safin’s. When he had located it, he took a deep breath and plunged back into the surging tide of people.

It took him fifteen minutes to make it to Nadal’s side. He paused only briefly, nodding to everyone in the little group. To Rafael, he stuck his hand out and muttered something about a recent tournament. Given that Rafa always seemed to be winning something, no one took it amiss.

They all missed the barest flicker of confusion on Rafa’s face, or the sharp flick of his eyes down to the clasped hands as they shook.

“I have to say hello to someone, but I’ll see you around,” Roger said.

It was an unusual way for him to leave, lacking his usual grace, but Rafael barely noticed.

Five minutes later, Rafa excused himself from the group. He went to the men’s room, locked himself into a cubicle, and opened out the little note Roger had pushed so discreetly into his hand.

Roger didn’t tend to do such things. He was usually the one scared of being seen. Rafa was the one who took the slight risks, who turned up at hotels or hugged a little too hard. Roger was the one who was always smiling, always friendly, and always over cautious.

Rafael read the note over once and his jaw dropped. He looked down at the front of his shirt before hastily reading the note again.

He gaped for a bit and then stifled the guffaws that threatened to break out.

He put a hand over his mouth, and shook as a wave of hilarity claimed his attention for the foreseeable future. Then he calmed down, smoothed down his clothes, stuck the note into his pocket and sauntered out as if everything was perfectly normal.

He went back out into the gathering and walked straight up to Roger. He deliberately touched his arm and drew him away from the other people.

Roger eyed Rafa in covert alarm, frantically hoping he hadn’t misrepresented the situation by introducing something so juvenile as a love note into the affair. He had a sudden vision of Nadal acting like a lover in front of everyone. The man was so young, who knew what hare-brained idealism he would take into his head?

Federer was not quite prepared to be part of a big gay tennis scandal and he shot a quick glance at the exit in case escape seemed imperative.

“I read your note, Roger,” Rafa said shortly, grinning like the whole thing was a very good joke. “It make me feel so happy.”

“Quietly, Rafa,” Roger said, dropping his head lower so they could talk below their breathes.

Rafa wondered how Roger hadn’t yet realized that this was more suspicious than pretending to have a normal conversation.

“You mean it, Rogi?” he asked sweetly.

Federer smiled back and nodded. “Of course.” The smile dropped a little. “Let’s talk about it later, Rafa. We don’t want to be overheard.”

“I want talk about it now. You think I am good? You like me?”

Roger frowned. Even on his worst days, Rafa was never that obtuse. Nor that needy. “Yes,” he said simply, as if it were obvious.

“You like my eyes?” Rafa asked.

“What are you talking about? I like everything.”

“My mouth? How bout my legs? You like my legs, no?”

Rafael put out a foot and presented his leg, turning his head to examine it himself from another angle.

Roger shot a quick look around but no one seemed to be taking any notice.

“Stop that,” he hissed.

Rafa’s grin, if anything got wider. His face acquired a look of deep mischief. “How bout my breasts?”

Roger almost fell over backwards. “What?”

“My breasts,” Rafa said, and lifted his hands to place them just under the gentle curve of his chest. He looked down at himself and inhaled to make his chest expand a bit and then let the breath out in a short huff. “I think they are small, no?”

“Are you mad?” Roger asked seriously.

“Oh, you no like them. I know it. I know it from when we start. I tell you, ‘I have no big breasts’ but you say you don’t care so I feel happy but now you tell me you no like them and I feel sad.”

Rafa fluttered his eyelashes and Roger almost had a heart attack.

Rafa finally let out the shout of laughter he’d been holding back and Roger almost had another heart attack. He looked around at all the people staring at them and smiled nervously, hissing at Rafa under his breath to shut up and stop making a scene.

Rafa let him stew in his own embarrassment for a while longer before shaking his head and calming down.

“Who did it?” he asked, one hand slipping into his jacket pocket to finger the note.

Roger looked sheepish. “Marat.”

“You ask Marat to write this? He’s mad,” Nadal pointed out sensibly.

“I didn’t tell him why. I gave him a note and asked him to translate. Here. I’ll show you.” Roger fished out the other note and handed it over.

Rafael absorbed it and smiled. “This is you,” he said decisively, “And it sound like you. But this…”

He handed over the note Safin had written.

Roger stared at the scrawls but could only guess at one word in five. “What did he say?” he asked.

“He says you like my hair, my eyes and my legs. Then he says you like my breasts. I not understand first when I read but now I’m understanding he do the trick on you.”

“I’ll kill him,” Roger growled, “On court and off court.”

Rafa laughed again, but quietly this time, and patted his lover soothingly on the shoulder. “I want you like my eye, Roger. Is alright, no?”

“Yeah.” Roger wasn’t listening.

He was scanning the crowd for Safin, whose blond head he had already found hard to miss.

Rafa chuckled to himself as Roger suddenly charged off into the crowd. He slipped his hand into his pocket to touch the folded slip of paper again. This was one joke he wasn’t going to let Roger live down for a while.


End file.
